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PLAY 10 - Manage Implementation

A milestone-based development plan with short-term measurement of progress and periodic revisiting of objectives related to the end game is essential to eventual success. Today’s advanced methodologies call for iterative development and constant user feedback. An incremental, fast-paced style of software development with close collaboration between technologists and practitioners helps reduce the risk of failure and gets working software into users’ hands as early as possible to give the design and development team opportunities to adjust based on user feedback about the service. Breaking down the total Information Sharing and Safeguarding (IS&S) Environment development into subtasks so that each can be monitored and explained to management and the governance body is an important contribution to the likelihood of overall success.

Desired Outcome:A milestone-based project plan is in place and is used to monitor and manage implementation through initial installation and system testing.

Play Checklist

1. A critical capability is being able to automatically test and deploy the service so that new features can be added often and be put into production easily.

2. Ensure the individuals building the services communicate closely using techniques such as launch meetings, war rooms, daily standups, and team chat tools.

3. Hold discussion sessions with stakeholders to help them understand why identified cultural obstacles should not stand in the way of implementation.

4. Keep delivery teams small and focused; limit organizational layers that separate these teams from the business owners.

5. Release features and improvements multiple times each month.

6. Create a prioritized list of features and bugs, also known as the feature backlog and bug backlog.

7. Use a source code version control system.

8. Give the entire project team access to the issue tracker and version control system.

9. Use code reviews to ensure quality.

Play Key Questions

1. Do you have a project plan? Do you have a budget?

2. How long it is each stage of deployment expected to take before a move to production deployment?

3. What is the estimated timeline for a go-live move to production?

4. How many days or weeks are in each iteration/sprint?

5. How are you going to share the status on regular basis among the project team and the project sponsors?

6. Which version control system is being used?

7. How are bugs tracked and tickets issued? What tool is used?

8. How is the feature backlog managed? What tool is used?

9. How often do you review and reprioritize the feature and bug backlog?

10. How do you collect user feedback during development? How is that feedback used to improve the service?